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Will the telcos compensate for the SingTel fire?

Almost 60,000 SingTel broadband customers were affected by the fire that broke out at around 2pm on 9 October 2013. An approximate 30,000 mioTV customers, around 30,000 voice lines were also affected.

A total of 149 cables were damaged, of which two-thirds belong to OpenNet, Singapore’s ultra-fast fibre broadband network builder.

When asked how it plans to compensate advertisers for the loss of airtime on its various platforms, SingTel’s spokesperson told Marketing that it has been focused on assessing what the cause of the fire was and that “SingTel will also convene an internal board of inquiry and work closely with IDA to review the robustness of its systems and minimise the impact of such accidents in future.”

Rival telcos StarHub and M1 were also affected by the fire.

A spokesperson from StarHub told Marketing that its customers in Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang and Woodlands had their cable TV, cable and fibre broadband, and digital voice services disrupted as a result of a fire.

She added that by 2.30pm yesterday, all its cable TV, cable broadband and digital voice services for affected customers were fully restored, while 36% of its fibre broadband services had been restored at about 5.35pm.

“We have been advised by SingTel that it will take SingTel 24-36 hours to fully restore services to fibre broadband customers,” she added.

When asked how advertisers would be compensated for the lost airtime, she said since the incident happened, StarHub has concentrated its efforts on restoration of the affected services and StarHub “will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with SingTel to ensure that their services remain stable.”

“We will assess all other matters after restoration works are fully completed.”